Abstract [en]

The thesis aims to investigate folk high school participants’ social representations of university. According to the theory of social representa­tions, folk high school participants’ social representations of university are created socially and change depending on their experiences of university. The thesis also aims to investigate the origins of these social representations and how they have developed over time, as well as whether and how these rep­resent­ations have been affected by other social representa­tions, such as those of the distinctive character of folk high school. In order to identify folk high schools participants’ social identities and social rep­resenta­tions, I have made use of empirical data collected through free associa­tions and interviews with folk high school participants and former folk high school participants. To discover the origin of the representations and how they developed over time, I conducted a document study of an important folk high school teacher magazine. The results show that throughout the history of folk high schools, the institution has remained true to two basic ideas. These two fundamental ideas explain why different social identities and different representa­tions exist among the participants. The idea of folk high school as something different and special, leads to representations of folk high school as an alternative to other forms of education and to representations of university as some­­thing unlike folk high school. The second idea – that folk high school must adapt to the surrounding community – leads to representations of folk high school as a second chance and social representations of university as a goal.